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Precisely rendered, the first sentence of this verse would read, "By which also ye are being saved." St. Paul applies, in his writings, the best corrective to the imperfect, and indeed false, notion that human redemption is a thing completed, a thing done outside of and separate from men, a something which they are to receive as if it were a mere gift provided for them apart from their own exertions. St. Paul clearly saw that redemption is a moral work; its proper sphere is a man's mind and heart and life. It is a process, and it has to be carried on right through a man's earthly history. There is a sense in which it may be said that we are saved, but there is a much truer and deeper sense in which it may be said that we are being saved. One of the most striking expressions of the Pauline idea of salvation as a present process, carried on within us, is found in Romans 5:10: "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Some adequate notion of the Pauline thought of salvation may be obtained by dwelling on the following three representations: -

I. THE BEGINNING OF SALVATION IS THE RECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL. Observe how the Christian teachers first demanded faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the beginning. We must accept of Jesus as the Sent of God, the Son of God, and the Saviour from sin. That beginning may be

(1) intellectual, - a persuasion, upon due evidence, that Christ is the Saviour; or it may be

(2) emotional, - a constraint of love to him who condescended, bore, and suffered so much for us, and whose personal history is such a fascination. Here is the initial stage, "Dost thou believe that Jesus is the Son of God?" You cannot be on the Christian platform at all unless you can give to that question a simple and hearty affirmative. But this is only a beginning. A man is not saved upon such a faith as that. There must be advance to spiritual apprehension of the relation in which Jesus stands to the individual and the individual may stand to him.

II. THE STATE OF SALVATION IS STANDING IN THE GOSPEL. It is apprehending that the Lord Jesus Christ has, by the perfection of his obedience and the sublime merit of his sacrifice, made a new standing ground before God for us. That he represents us. That he wins a place before God, and a relation with God, for us. That his personal rights are not exclusively personal, but are rights which he shares with us, or allows us to share with him, and we are "accepted in the Beloved." In the presence of law claim, we stand as "justified." In the presence of God's claim to perfect obedience, we stand, in Christ, as righteous. In the anticipations of a judgment day, we stand as already acquitted; for us "there is now no condemnation."

III. THE PROCESS OF SALVATION IS GIVING THE GOSPEL FREE ROOM TO WORK IN MIND, AND HEART, AND RELATIONS, AND LIFE. The gospel being conceived, not primarily as a set of principles, and duties, and counsels, but primarily as the spiritual and abiding presence of the Lord Jesus Christ with us, using truths, principles, experiences, duties, thoughts, and counsels, as need be, for the carrying on of his gracious work of moral perfecting. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification;" and we lose the holiest interest in that sanctification when we fail to realize that the Lord Jesus Christ is now actually present with us, carrying on and presiding over this work. We are being saved; and the exceeding solemnity of our common everyday life lies in this - Christ is in it, working at our salvation. The apostle therefore urges upon us that we must hold in quick and living memory the gospel of the present, working Saviour - risen that he might carry on to its full completion his redemptive work - and that to believe in vain is to profess belief, but give the faith no power to open our soul and life to the redeemings of the risen, living, and ever-present Saviour. - R.T.

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KJV: By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

WEB: by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.